Personal Stories

Deep Sea Salmon

Dad where have you gone?Did you leap quicksilver into the last runof legendary kings – those eighty-pound June Hogs –that bashed themselves against the wallsof the Grand Coulee Dam?Or are you too smart for the trap of extinctionstill holding in the shadows of that damin the back of my mind – thinkingbut not showing much?…
Personal Stories

A Song of Silence

It was long ago but that silence comes back like a soft-whistled lullaby with clean air floating in after and I could just give myself over to dreams – and see things not just in the clouds but down along foggy roads and in shadows of half-silent streams trickling in the woods and across the…
Personal Stories

Song of the Lover

Song of the Lover                         I He saved her from the sea and was almost drowned to bring her in risking all to spare her but there beside him on the shore she failed no matter how he tried to force from her the salt tide lingering He suffered her to fade her body laid…
Personal Stories

The Hunchback

a tale by Eugene Marckx In those ancient times the Mountain king, the River king, and the Valley king considered themselves brothers in the lineage of the Moon-Goddess. So, at last when the Valley king died, his two brothers along their retinues came to express their grief with the people of the valley. For two…
Personal Stories

Fathers and Sons

By Eugene Marckx Dale lived alone with his mother, except on nights when the banker’s top hat was hanging on her bedroom door, or the senator’s homburg, or the general’s roughrider hat. Dale slept on a cot off the kitchen pantry, so she could be available when they came through. Most days he’d wander along…
Personal Stories

Old Soldier

He walks between his metal shop and his greenhousefingernails broken at the edgeswrists coloring rust into the dirtfeet spread apart the old grunt way‒ a habit not broken off frommortars dropping In the metal shop sparks fly off the wheelsharpening a blade he may needto carve away trouble ‒ you never knowIn the greenhouse cherry…
Personal Stories

The Lord’s Stallion

By John Thompson I want to be the Lord’s stallion! Thick and broad and sinewed And of milky mane, Sun’s fire caught and flashing In my dancing eyes And hooves as sharp and shining As obsidian! I want to feel upon my neck The firm direction of His arms And feel my tensing flanks Beneath…
Personal Stories

What If

What if I could give myself a bit more attention? A bit more care? Maybe even a new respect by clearing off a bit of the old clutter? What if this alone could wake me – break me up? Open my eyes to whatever’s in the air? Find a new breath for this pair of…
Personal Stories

Sometimes These Days

By John Thompson Sometimes these days I find myself so full of joy and gratitude that I feel like I might just explode. That’s not hyperbole: I really am beside myself, wondering what to do with so much overwhelming energy. I still have my sorrows and grief, mind you, and my discontents, but even when…
Personal Stories

The Tangled Hills

Find a place at the edge of a swamp Listen and learn and take in who goes – who stays – what’s eaten – what decays – all the stinks and stews of it in the percolating ooze of a swamp’s necessities until you realize this isn’t all that life’s about When you come away…
Personal Stories

Crows

by Ray Ruhlen “A crow stood on the burning deck, eating potatoes by the peck”We have an extended family of crows around us, I have fed them daily after lunch for many years, we get along together, the crows, me, and out black cat, Mr. Squeakers, who I take out for a walk after lunch…
Personal Stories

When I was a Boy

… we’d go tramping off the back road through salal and ferns and huckleberries and hike the dry logged-off ridges crisscrossed with wild strawberries tiny and tasty and gritty with sand We’d stomp down tough blackberry vines raveling over the slash of old bones piles of branches the loggers left We’d reach past bramble thorns…
Personal Stories

Deep Sea Salmon

Dad where have you gone? Did you leap quicksilver into a big run of legendary June Hogs now long lost? Or are you too smart for that? Did you break through the trap of extinction holding to the shadows of that dam in back of my mind—thinking but not showing much?   Once in a…
Personal Stories

Jet

A memoir by Eugene Marckx   Among the dogs in my life one stands out, a Black Labrador mix that came into our family when we weren’t looking for him.  We were looking for a small black Cockapoo that had run away from us, a dog one of my sons had gotten off his paper route. …
Personal Stories

Davison Stivers

Davison has been a part of A Gathering of Men almost from the beginning. He has participated as a story teller, board member, president, facilitator. He’s been a mentor to many men over the years. Additonally he’s participated in The Noble Journey, sponsored by Counceling Associates, Which helped me explore four primary male archetypes (King,…